mg snobs

[greg press]

I was wondering has any body ever run into people at car shows who thought that because they owned the real deal they were better than you?I did.It was one of my first shows.I was told it didn’t sound like a mg and they new it when they heard it pulling in.There were 2 mgtd’s all of the rest were mini’s.They stayed in there little group and talked . I got a little revenge when one of the judges asked about the car and told me it was one of the best replicas he had ever seen[no replica class that day maybe next year]Got home looked on ebay every mg except mgtd that was there was less money than mine.Later saw a picture of my car in the newspaper[only car in paper] from that event.Hope they saw it. 

[Paul Mossberg]

You will find all types in the car hobby. Including the types you just described.

But for the most part, the people I’ve met through car related “stuff” are terrific people.

Don’t let the snobs discourage you.

But if you want to get back at the td-snobs, ask them what their ratio of drive-time to maintenance-time is. I bet you’ll get a lot more road mileage on your replica than they will on their original.

Paul Mossberg
Former Owner of a 1981 Classic Roadsters Ltd. Duchess (VW)
2005 Intermeccanica Roadster

If you own a TDr and are not in the Registry, please go to https://tdreplica.com/forums/topic/mg-td-replica-registry/ and register (you need to copy and paste the link)

[edward ericson]

MGs of Baltimore club guys are cordial (they did use a photo I sent from the Rocks show in their November newsletter–pdf here), but they’re not overly friendly so far. I’ve not parked near enough to “real” MG guys at a show to test them like you did, but I suspect a few might be a little snooty. Understandable, since some of them have a lot of emotion (and $$) wrapped up in that purist identity. To see a better looking, more practical and reliable car pull in with VW or Pinto or Chevette power can be a real blow to their ego. In a way, it threatens everything they stand for.

(Some day I’m going to park Bridget at the restaurant where the MGs of Baltimore hold their monthly meeting, eat dinner, and watch & listen).

Mostly, car guys are car guys, and everything with an engine, wheels and a gearbox is interesting to us. I’ve had old time hotrodders give the nod, muscle car guys, even tuners in Hondas with coffee can exhausts (I dislike those things; but their owners are just younger versions of us). Last summer a guy in a really primo chrome bumper MGB went by me on the highway with a look of awe in his eyes. I’m sure he thought Bridget was the real deal, and I seriously doubt that if he found out she was a BCW he would have gotten too upset with me. If you don’t like my car cause it’s a kit car, or ’cause it’s a VW, that’s your problem, not mine.

P.S.: for an idea about why T-car owners have problems we don’t–and some we do–have a gander at “Mr Toads Stool – Fasteners,” beginning on page 11 of the above-linked “Octogram” newsletter. Did you know that MG TDs had not only two different kinds of uniquely British bolt threads (British Standard Whitworth and British Standard Fine), but also several styles of metric threads scattered throughout the engine, transmission and instruments? Me neither. But Bridget does have both fine and coarse SAE threads plus the German metrics in her works. . . .

 

[Dan Rosa]

 I think the reasoning is lost in time and goes back to the vets of the 1940s as Harley people would not even consider a Jap. bike owner worthy of even talking to . British bike owners were OK BMWs were far and few between..I had bought a Kawasaki as a kid and had to tell my father that it was a Polish bike !!!so I would be able to keep it..He did find out ,and he was a little put out Well I was guilty as any one when I bought my first HARLEY 1974 I to became a snob , I guess I got a little older and things change  Today there many Fiberglass cars out there ,at the car shows. there many glass Ford ”hot rods “and they mix with the steel body cars… there are not as many chevy, or Chrysler cars in glass BUT we are guilty if we as an owners of a KIT TD try to pull it off as an English  MG TD and not as a kit TD when as a kit, we are owners a unique car and should be just as proud ..Dan

[edward ericson]

The old Harley antipathy to rice rockets may be dying off, but very slowly. I think some of the vitriol came about with the Suzuki Shadow and Kawi Vulcan–bikes designed to look enough like a Hog that guys would be fooled from across the street.

And they were despised by those guys mainly, I think, because they’re better bikes. Many were the spring mornings when, elbows deep into my friend’s ’62 Sportster’s gearcase, we shook our greasy fists in impotent rage at the Honda riders zooming by the driveway.

Some of the rat-rodder faithful have something of a steel vs ‘glass snobbery (just mention Boyd Coddington over on the H.A.M.B. and watch the flames shoot out), and a fair subset of them hate everything “fake.” But fake on a rod tends to run toward stuff like a “quick change” rear gear housing welded to a Ford 9-inch, which looks a lot more like what it is than what it’s trying to look like. There are also the fake “fuel injection” covers that fit poorly over your Edelbrock/Carter four-barrel, and the occasional “8-71 supercharger” cover for same. Apparently, some mfg even makes “Olds Rocket” valve covers that fit a Chevy small block. That’s total sneer bait for the cognoscenti.

I kinda think that stuff is lame too, though the underlying impulse–wanting something cheap and easy and reliable that looks like something old and rare and badass–is not too far from what most of our cars are all about.

So I’m pretty humble and pretty reliable about telling people what Bridget is, if they ask or can’t guess. The rare exceptions are when it would obviously ruin someone’s day to do so.

edsnova40908.5271527778

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